Kinect for Windows SDK Beta Refresh Available – The Microsoft Research team behind the Kinect for Windows Software Development Kit announce an updated beta refresh which brings improved stability to the Kinect framework, along with improvements to the APIs and time sampling, and further improved documentation.
Announcing TouchDevelop v2.0 beta: script sharing in the cloud – Nikolai Tillmann announces the release of TouchDevelop v2.0 beta, an update (with a new name) to the project know previously as TouchStudio which allows you to write and share scripts for your Windows Phone 7 mobile device. This new version includes cloud based sharing of scripts, and improved editor, and a new supporting website.
Information
MSDN Magazine: August 2011 – The August edition of MSDN Magazine is now available online, with articles this month exploring FTS, Visual Studio LightSwitch, HTML5, Multi-platform development using the Portable Class Libraries functionality, artificial intelligence, and parallel programming in .NET. Combine this with all the usual columns and that is one element of your holiday reading sorted
Text templating using Razor the easy way – Phil Haack shows how easily you can use the Razor engine with the RazorGenerator Visual Studio Extension to generated templated output for use in places other than web applications, illustrating with a simple console application.
Thoughts on MicroOrms – Chris Brandsma takes a look at the MicroORM landscape, discussing why you might want to consider MicroORMs for use in your projects, and looking at three of the main players, Simple.Data, Dapper and Massive.
HTML5 Part 2: Canvas – Jennifer Marsman presses on with this week’s post series looking at HTML5 features, taking a look in this post at the HTML5 Canvas, showing a simple drawing example using the canvas, and looking at canvas compared to SVG.
Version Control Model Enhancements in TFS 11 – Brian Harry discusses some of the background to version control in TFS, its aims, design goals and some history, and introduces the new concepts of Local Workspaces in TFS11 and shares a video of them in use.
Web Dev .NET: 7 Chrome Tips Developers & Designers May Not Know – Elijah Manor shares 7 tips for working with Chrome as a Web developer or designer, looking at modifying JavaScript and CSS in browser, unminify JavaScript source, Break points triggered by DOM changes, inspecting CSS pseudo-class selectors, keyboard shortcuts, and customising the browser developer experience.
Community
Windows Phone Usergroup – Aug ’11 – Designing better apps – Windows Phone 7 – The Windows Phone Usergroup in London are meeting on Wednesday 17th August when Dave Crawford, a Microsoft UX Designer in Windows Phone Developer Support will be discussing common design mistakes app developers make. Additionally there will be general Q&A along with an opportunity to show off the applications you are workin on.